SaaStr

APRIL 27, 2024

Why do founders leave after their companies are acquired? There are many nuanced answers, but in the short and medium term, it’s incentives. Acquirers use 3 incentives to get founders to stay: Sticks. If you leave, you lose X% of the consideration. Acquirers try to put 30%-40% of the founders’ consideration at risk, if they can get away with it. This sort of works, but it leads to “rest-and-vest” behavior if not thoughtfully combined with Carrots (next point).

Acquisition 310

Acquisition Data Business Strategy 310

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 3, 2024

The average American attention span has fallen from 150 seconds in 2004 to 75 seconds in 2012 to 47 seconds in 2023 - a 5-6% annual rate of decline. Year Avg American Attention Span (sec) CAGR 2004 150 - 2012 75 -6% 2023 47 -5% How does this compare to these blog posts? In 2013, the average reader dwelled on this site for 47 seconds. Today, it’s 33 seconds, a 3.6% decline - which is a bit better !

Metrics 320

Metrics Data 320

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 26, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now Azure Report - Cloud Infra Looks Good! Microsoft kicked off earnings season with a bang! For software, all eyes were on Azure - which grew 31% YoY (ahead of expectations closer to 29%). What was arguably more impressive (and a better indicator of what’s to come for the rest of infrastructure software than overall Azure growth) was the Azure growth excluding

Azure 177

Azure Cloud Software AI 177

Payrix

APRIL 24, 2024

Andy Meadows, the Head of Partner Success at Payrix joins host Ian Hillis to continue their conversation about building a successful Embedded Payments strategy. As the last episode of a four-part series on the topic, Andy and Ian tackle how software companies can minimize attrition and why it’s important to the payments conversation. Did you miss Parts 1-3?

Payments 162

Payments Embedded Payments Merchant Services Payment Solutions 162

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For SaaS businesses, improving retention is one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive revenue and profits. With a clear link between failed payments and customer churn, having a robust failed payment recovery solution isn’t optional—it’s essential. Achieving your retention goals starts with the right solution.

Payment Solutions

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 16, 2024

I am pleased to announce that we have just raised $7.2B for the following venture strategies: American Dynamism ($600M), Apps ($1B), Games ($600M), Infrastructure ($1.25B), and Growth ($3.75B). This marks an important milestone for us. When Marc and I started the firm in 2009, the conventional wisdom in Venture Capital was that in any given year, only 15 companies would ever generate $100M in revenue and those 15 companies would drive almost all of VC returns.

Venture Capital 144

Venture Capital AI Innovation Enterprise 144

SaaStr

APRIL 8, 2024

So as growth decelerated rapidly for many in SaaS in 2022-2023, one of the first things cut was marketing. It’s not always ideal, but I get it. It’s a variable cost. Cut marketing, you’re often cutting future growth. But it’s a “simple” place to cut to at least stabilize the ship and survive to fight another day.

Marketing 316

Marketing Social Media Advertising Content Marketing 316

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 30, 2024

Amazon announced their earnings yesterday. Like Microsoft & Google, Amazon’s Web Service business is seeing a surge of growth, up from 13% annual to 17% annual growth (16% when excluding the leap year). Aside from the overall growth of these clouds increasing, the massive investment in CapEx data centers, power plants, and GPUs is stunning.

Cloud 289

Cloud AWS Azure AI 289

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 11, 2024

Q4 earnings season for cloud businesses is now behind us. The 62 companies that I’ll discuss here (which is not an exhaustive list, but is still comprehensive) all reported quarterly earnings sometime between Jan 24th – March 27th. In this post, I’ll take a data-driven approach in evaluating the overall group’s performance, and highlight individual standouts along the way.

Cloud 177

Cloud Software Azure AWS 177

Sparktoro

APRIL 3, 2024

It’s an exciting, relieving, high-anticipation day for all of us at SparkToro. Today’s launch—which we call “V2″—is the culmination of more than a year of work, including a complete rebuild of the infrastructure and data sources for our product.

Content Marketing 136

Content Marketing Marketing Data 136

Speaker: Pete Uselman, Director of Partner Experience at Wind River Payments

Many software companies are exploring PayFac-as-a-Service providers in an effort to drive more embedded payments revenue and gain greater control over the customer experience. But there are nuances in a PayFac relationship that often get downplayed – nuances that can impact the risk and resource responsibilities of software providers. In this webinar, integrated payments veteran, Pete Uselman discusses the following: What is a PayFac?

Payfac

Andreessen Horowitz

APRIL 11, 2024

The electric grid, a vast and complex system of wires and power plants, is essential to our economy and underpins our industrial strength. Currently, we face a critical challenge: our electricity demands — expected to nearly double by 2040 due to factors like AI compute, reshoring , and “electrification” — are soaring, but our grid infrastructure and operations struggle to keep pace.

Outsourced Development 140

Outsourced Development Technical Review Systems Review Scale 140

Buffer Resources

APRIL 24, 2024

Spoiler alert: it’s not organic vs paid social media – it’s organic and paid social media. Businesses often grapple with which to focus on, but that mindset ignores the value of both organic and paid social media to enhance the success of your overall marketing strategy significantly. Both approaches require different methods but will be equally effective overall.

Social Media 133

Social Media Strategy Scale Branding 133

SaaStr

APRIL 21, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Are The Top 5 Things I Should Know Before Starting a SaaS Startup? My Top 5: It will take you at least 24 months to really get anywhere. Everyone mentally budgets 10–12 months. It’s never enough. At least, not to get enough paying customers from Code Zero. A little more here: [link] A co-founder not equally committed will blow up on you, and best case, is a disaster you will have to clean up later.

Startup 310

Startup CTO SaaS Interviewing 310

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 28, 2024

What drives the acquisition market of startups? It’s the big deals. In the last decade, the total number of venture backed software M&A by count has remained relatively constant. The black line shows the linear trend across US venture backed companies with disclosed values of $50m or more. The average & median counts by year total 58 & 55 respectively.

Acquisition 268

Acquisition Startup Venture Capital Software 268

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Large enterprises face unique challenges in optimizing their Business Intelligence (BI) output due to the sheer scale and complexity of their operations. Unlike smaller organizations, where basic BI features and simple dashboards might suffice, enterprises must manage vast amounts of data from diverse sources. What are the top modern BI use cases for enterprise businesses to help you get a leg up on the competition?

Enterprise

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 5, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now Hype Rounds vs Fundamental Rounds The show Silicon Valley is one of my favorites - just so many nuggets of humor in that show. A favorite clip of mine is when Russ Hanneman is talking about how pre-revenue businesses are the best kind of businesses.

Cloud 161

Cloud Scale Revenue Pricing 161

FastSpring

APRIL 17, 2024

Ready to join the leading conference for B2B SaaS founders, operators and investors from pre-seed to series C? If so, join FastSpring at SaaStock USA 2024 at Booth S5! We’d love to talk with you in person! Join us at the Palmer Events Center, in Austin, TX, from May 13th to 15th, for an extraordinary event dedicated to all things SaaS. Since 2016, SaaStock has helped more founders, investors, and operators connect, learn, and grow than any other SaaS conference globally.

Payment Services 133

Payment Services Merchant Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions 133

USIO

APRIL 26, 2024

In the heart of Austin, where the vibrant culture and musical heritage intersect, lies a celebration that resonates with the soul of the city—the Austin Blues Festival starting April 27 and running through April 28, 2024. As the city gears up for another unforgettable gathering of music enthusiasts and performers, one name stands out as a beacon of support: Usio Akimbo.

Banking 130

Banking Entertainment Government Finance 130

Buffer Resources

APRIL 8, 2024

There’s a narrative among marketers that I’m tired of hearing, and it’s that X (formerly Twitter) ads don’t work.  I admittedly started experimenting with X ads for my marketing consulting business somewhat out of desperation after a series of unfortunate events locked me out of my Facebook account. But, I quickly realized how much untapped potential this platform offered for me and other small business owners.

Social Media 133

Social Media Advertising Education Branding 133

Speaker: Anindo Banerjea, CTO at Civio & Tony Karrer, CTO at Aggregage

When developing a Gen AI application, one of the most significant challenges is improving accuracy. This can be especially difficult when working with a large data corpus, and as the complexity of the task increases. The number of use cases/corner cases that the system is expected to handle essentially explodes. 💥 Anindo Banerjea is here to showcase his significant experience building AI/ML SaaS applications as he walks us through the current problems his company, Civio, is solving.

Generative AI

SaaStr

APRIL 15, 2024

Dear SaaStr: A Big Tech Co Launched a Competitive Product. How Can I Tell How Serious They Are About It? In SaaS at least, I’ll give you one metric that is fairly reliable: How many dedicated sales professional do they have, just 100% selling the competitive product? If it’s none yet, it’s an experiment. If they’ve just made a “Head of” hire, it’s an experiment, but one that is getting budget.

Sales Hiring 310

Sales Hiring Engineering Metrics Sales 310

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 21, 2024

In “Do software companies actually have good margins?”, Benn Stancil makes a case for a counterintuitive point : Software companies are much less profitable than they might seem. Why? Because the research & development costs associated with software should be part of their cost of goods sold. Software companies don’t invest once in R&D & then sell copies of the software as we did in the 90s on CDs.

Software 247

Software Business Construction Government 247

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 19, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now Rubrik IPO Update This week Rubrik launched their IPO with an initial pricing range of $28 - $31 / share. This range represents roughly a $6B valuation at the midpoint ($29.50 / share), with a ~6.5x NTM revenue multiple.

Cloud 141

Cloud Scale Payment Features Subscription 141

FastSpring

APRIL 16, 2024

Offering a frictionless checkout experience is essential for digital transaction conversion rates. Today, we’re excited to announce new payment method improvements available on the FastSpring platform: Apple Pay Pix Preferred Payment Method Apple Pay: Seamless Transactions Within the Apple Ecosystem As Apple Pay adoption continues to grow, incorporating Apple Pay into payment options becomes an essential part of your digital strategy.

Payment Methods 130

Payment Methods Payments Payment Services PayPal 130

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Uncover the secrets driving the future of the Subscription Economy. Zuora and BCG’s latest report uncovers how hybrid pricing models—combining subscription and consumption (usage)—are fueling faster growth, especially in AI-driven sectors. Discover how industry leaders are outperforming their competition by diversifying revenue streams and adopting cutting-edge infrastructure and billing systems.

Pricing

Predictable Revenue

APRIL 24, 2024

Joe Sullivan sheds light on balancing educational outreach with sales tactics and how to position your brand as a thought leader. The post How to get in front of your audience before they’re ready to buy appeared first on Predictable Revenue.

Education 130

Education Branding Revenue Sales 130

Buffer Resources

APRIL 18, 2024

Each year, fresh ideas, concepts, and technological innovations shape the creative design landscape. These influences give rise to a wave of new graphic design trends, revolutionizing how we conceive, craft, and engage with art. Many of these graphic design trends infiltrate the realms of business and marketing. Some influence web design, some make their way onto packaging, and others become a staple for social media branding.

Social Media 132

Social Media Branding Trends Innovation 132

SaaStr

APRIL 16, 2024

Dear SaaStr: What Do You Do When Your Startup is Not Growing Anymore? First, be honest about why. You can blame it on macro issues if you want, but if growth has radically decelerated, it’s likely because you are less competitive than you were before. You probably have fallen out of product-market fit, partially or entirely. Be honest. And go close those feature gaps, and get back to being ahead of the competition — not behind.

Startup 309

Startup B2B Metrics Product Marketing 309

Tom Tunguz

APRIL 22, 2024

On Friday May 3rd at 9:30 Pacific time, Office Hours will host Jordan Tigani, CEO of MotherDuck. Jordan’s path through data starts with being the founding tech lead on Google Big Query to SingleStore’s Chief Product Officer to MotherDuck’s CEO. He wrote the Big Data is Dead , explaining that a power law applies to most companies’ data.

Data 237

Data Innovation Cloud Marketing 237

Speaker: Michael Mansard and Katherine Shealy

Generative AI is no longer just an exciting technological advancement––it’s a seismic shift in the SaaS landscape. Companies today are grappling with how to not only integrate AI into their products but how to do so in a way that makes financial sense. With the cost of developing AI capabilities growing, finding a flexible monetization strategy has become mission critical.

AI

Clouded Judgement

APRIL 12, 2024

Every week I’ll provide updates on the latest trends in cloud software companies. Follow along to stay up to date! Subscribe now March Inflation (CPI) Update CPI: March CPI YoY was +3.5% vs expectations of +3.4% (and +3.2% in February) March CPI MoM +0.4% vs expectations of +0.3% (and +0.4% in February) March Core CPI (ex Food/Energy) YoY +3.8% vs expectations of +3.7% (and +3.8% in February) March Core CPI (ex Food/Energy) MoM +0.4% vs expectations of +0.3% (and +0.4% in February) We̵

Cloud 141

Cloud Payment Features Subscription Revenue 141

USIO

APRIL 22, 2024

SaaS companies are continually seeking innovative strategies to not just maintain but amplify their growth trajectory and increase revenue. One pivotal yet often overlooked area is payments. Integrating efficient payment systems along with offering revenue share will significantly impact a SaaS company’s revenue streams and overall expansion. We’ll delve into how SaaS companies are leveraging Usio Integrated Payment Solutions to propel their growth and increase revenue.

Payment Services 130

Payment Services SaaS Payments Payment Solutions Payments 130

Payrix

APRIL 17, 2024

Congratulations! You’ve decided to offer Embedded Payments to your customers. Adding Embedded Payments gives you an exciting opportunity to grow your business and solve real pain points for your customers. And solving pain points for your business owner customers are important, with 80% of business owners stating that accepting multiple payment types is vital to their success and one in five businesses reporting that they would switch software providers to be able to accept all the payment types

Payments 130

Payments Embedded Payments Merchant Services SaaS Payments 130